The act states that a girl in India can’t marry before the age of 18 and a boy before 21.
IANS visited several villages and met many parents marrying their children off at an early age, which leads to many health problems among girls.
Seven-year-old Upma is among the unlucky ones in Mora village.
“My mother doesn’t allow me to play because I am married,” a playful Upma told IANS.
The boy she has been married to lives in the neighbouring village of Sakarwas.
“I don’t know,” 12-year-old Pushpa replied shyly when asked how she felt at being married off.
“Child marriage is a major problem here. Imagine a girl getting pregnant when she is 15. This is one of the main reasons of high rates of maternal and child mortality in this state,” Nita Kumawat, who works with an NGO, JATAN Sansthan, told IANS.
Nearly every woman in the village that IANS came across looked anemic and sick.
One of them was 31-year-old Sankari Devi, Pushpa’s mother, who was married at the age of five. She has six children.
“I became mother when I was 16. I always feel sick,” a grey-haired Devi, who recently underwent sterilization surgery, told IANS.
Asked why she married off Pushpa at an early age, she said: “I hate it, but child marriage is our custom. Also we cannot bear the burden of ceremonial expenses.
Pushpa was married off along with her two elder sisters.”
Most of the inhabitants belong to lower Hindu castes. The men are either landless farmers or migrant labour.
“Child marriage is strongly entrenched in the customs of Rajasthan. Besides poverty, this is also because of lack of education,” Kumawat added.
Rajsamand District Magistrate K.C. Verma claims that his administration stopped over 200 marriages in the area.
“We can stop such marriages only to some extent as it’s difficult to keep track of every family. We talk to villagers and ask the workers at Anganwadis to counsel them against child marriages,” Verma told IANS.
Locals say that even the women workers at Anganwadis marry their children off at an early age.
Anganwadis cater to children in the 0-6 age group and provide outreach services to pregnant women in need of immunization and healthy food.
“I have told my parents several times that child marriage is illegal but they still got me engaged. In fact, we have had mock meetings of parliament in our school against this practice but to no avail,” 14-year-old Reena Kumawat told IANS.
Sadly, there is no one to hear her lament. (IANS)
